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Three years ago, Matt Rubinstein was building an app to help him better track students’ behavior in his classroom at KIPP Academy Nashville.

Today, his Nashville-based company, LiveSchool, is one of 10 finalists in The Wall Street Journal’s Startup of the Year contest, and he is talking to entrepreneurs and investors from throughout the country about how to best build a successful business.

“It’s kind of exciting to have worked for two years in a very quiet way and suddenly be sharing what we are doing every day,” Rubinstein said. “I’m super proud of our team and it’s been really awesome to spotlight the work they do as well.”

The Startup of the Year contest chose 24 startups from a pool of more than 500 applicants nationwide that would have the opportunity to showcase their company, participate in company challenges and interact with business mentors, while the contest narrows down the group of competitors during a 20-week contest. The startup of the year will be announced Nov. 4, with five more companies being eliminated today.

So far, Rubinstein has interacted with online retailer Zappos.com CEO Tony Hsieh, venture capitalist Scott Weiss, a general partner at Silicon Valley-based Andreessen Horowitz, and tech entrepreneur and Stanford University Fellow Vivek Wadhwa, having conversations that have caused him to consider changes in his own company.

Hsieh’s advice on building strong company culture and on building personal ties with customers has prompted him to give a budget to his customer support team, dedicated to thanking customers by surprising them with gifts, such as delivered pizzas. Additionally, Hsieh invited Rubinstein and another LiveSchool employee to travel to Zappos in Las Vegas in November.

“(Hsieh) talked about personal and emotional connections, really getting to know your customers,” Rubinstein said. “That is one thing we’ve put into place as a direct result.”

That thinking also was reflected in a company challenge documented as a part of the contest. For the challenge, Rubinstein instructed his 10-person team to find a date with a teacher to stay connected with their users and organized a happy hour with teachers and school administrators at Fat Bottom Taproom for the same purpose.

“We are doing a million things and focused on growing,” Rubinstein said. “The competition has forced me to step back and reflect on our team as well.”

LiveSchool’s software is designed to improve student behavior through setting clear expectations, tracking behavior in real time through an iPad and implementing a rewards system. The software shaves time teachers spend on tracking behavior and logging results after class and cuts time spent on discussing behavior in class, leading to more time for instruction. It also provides more information on student behavior for administrators and parents.

LiveSchool works with 80 schools in 25 different states, including nine in Nashville, and plans to expand to hundreds of new schools in the next year. The company raised $1.65 million in an equity offering this year from Nashville Capital Network investors, Tennessee Angel Fund, Solidus Co., former KIPP chief operating officer Rick Theobald and Steve Butler, former board member at STEM Prep Academy in Nashville.

While Wall Street Journal editors and mentors make the decision on which companies stay in the competition, there also is an online voting contest. As of Tuesday, the startup was ranked third, with 3,124 people saying they would buy stock in the company.

“The impact really [has been] to raise our profile as one of the ed-tech companies doing some really interesting things,” Rubinstein said. “I do expect as we look towards raising any future funding it will have a big impact and that people will really know who we are and know that our mission is about school culture and behavior management.”